Preface to the Special Issue: Overcoming the Late-Twentieth-Century Regime

JABS has diversely made up features about all sorts of issues that the Great East Japan Earthquake presented until now.
First, after drawing historical and cultural maps of Tohoku on the night before 3.11 in the January 2012 issue, we grasped and argued about the impact that 3.11 had on architectural learning and techniques, viewpoints and fields considered separately. In the December 2012 and January 2013 issues we delved into the on-site realities and problems in the tsunami-devastated areas and the Fukushima nuclear-devastated area. And in the February issue we dealt with repercussions of problems, from 3.11 to the Nankai Trough. This issue, then, on the second anniversary of the great earthquake, is a trial to question the system. And on this occasion, we, as the editorial board, will, for the present, bring to an end the feature that deals directly with the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Now, we decided to call the framework of recent disaster recoveries, including from the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the Great East Japan Earthquake, modern disaster recovery, which is a coinage in this feature. It may be a little rough, but it's a working hypothesis to create the grounds of an argument. Generally speaking, modern disaster recovery is based on the experiences in the first half of the 20th century, but actually it is deeply marked by the post-war Japanese society in the second half of the 20th century. And although limitations and contradictions had already appeared at the end of the 20th century, they are still applicable without much change - difficult problems are surfacing more obviously.

As the cover shows, the second half of the 20th century was a time of relatively few big disasters. Because big disasters occurred frequently either in the second half of the 19th century or the first half of the 20th century, and after the end of the 20th century Japan again plunged into a time of frequent disasters, "Japan post-war" was a period as special as if it were an air pocket. In that period, Japan's capitalistic business core boomed and the country built a machine (the welfare state) to redistribute the fruits. Modern disaster recovery also would be a part of the social system formed in that period. When a big disaster occurs, the disaster areas are once frozen and priority goes to infrastructural development; meanwhile, the public supply of temporary houses away from disaster areas and other such measures are cut into phases, from the beginning of the disaster until recovery is declared, to avoid phases interfering with each other; and massive construction is promoted. Although the projects are implemented by local municipalities, the national government and bureaucracy have the initiative in total schemes; thus, sectionalized subsidies from ministries and agencies mediate between the local and central groups. But that system was formed on the premises of a growing economy, and as the economy declines various contradictions naturally erupted.

Of course, it is no use to negate this system totally, and, at the site of the Great East Japan Earthquake, agonies have mounted in trying to find the possibilities in the system. But at the same time, while we historically relativize this big framework itself, we would have to boldly socialize the argument in structuring any new framework.

At the opening of this feature, following the explanation of the editorial board's coinage, modern disaster recovery, we inserted a diagram that compares typical disaster-recovery schemes in the world with those in Japan, plus a chronological table showing the formation of Japan's modern disaster recovery (by Masaru Tanaka). These all appear in the introductory material.
Part 1 then focuses on historic knowledge: Jin Yoshikawa explains disaster-countermeasure legislation; Shigeo Nakano, the standardization of infrastructure development (from order-made to ready-made); and Kenji Koshiyama, the historical course of varied support for sufferers. These deliberations will clarify the historicalness and particularity of modern disaster recovery.
In part 2 we sketch the outlook hereafter, critically summarizing modern disaster recovery from two angles. First, for the round table that focuses on the policy system and governance of recovery, we invited Shoji Sasaki, Hiroya Masuda, and Kei Minohara. In contrast, the talk by Susumu Tsukui and Jun Murai tries to get at the people's role in recent disaster recoveries. These two discussions, while revealing contentions that overlap each other, suggest the disputed points in any reconsideration of modern disaster recovery and the possibility of postmodern disaster recovery.
At the end, part 3 tries to indicate various situations and disputed points for a view of postmodern disaster recovery. We threw out this feature's theme and asked the following people to freely develop opinions: Takayoshi Igarashi, Shigeru Ito, Eiji Oguma, Akira Koshizawa, Hideya Terashima, Moriaki Hirohara, Akiko Benimura, Miwao Matsumoto, Yoshiteru Murosaki, and Kosuke Motani.

[Series] The Resolve to Rebuilding: City Reconstruction in Blueprint
The City Architecture Design Proposal for Hong Kong Colony in 1902 ─More Light and Air! / Hideo Izumida

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[Series] Great East Japan Earthquake Serial Report 1 Devastated Areas Have Just Started to Stir
Toyoma District in Iwaki ─Local Independent Efforts for Recovery Town Improvement by Council / Shunichi Satoh

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[Series] Great East Japan Earthquake Serial Report 2 Life in Temporary Housing
The Shape of Temporary Living among Kumamoto's Aso People in North Kyushu' s Rain-Devastated Area ─The Maintenance Process in Emergency Wooden Temporary-Housing / Hideaki Katsura

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[Special Dialogue] Any Border Should not Be in the Engineering World ─Chairmen dialogues of JSCE and AIJ / Takehiko Ono × Akira Wada